


Minbizia

by korereapers



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, But people are mortal after all, Canonical Child Abuse, Character Study, Fix-It, Gen, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Major character death in the epilogue, Mild Sexual Content, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, The Turtle CAN Help Us (IT), but it's a happy death, since this is a
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:53:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26971705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/korereapers/pseuds/korereapers
Summary: Something festers inside of him, and he still doesn’t know what it is. He just knows it will take him one day, after who knows how many years of making him rot.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Sonia Kaspbrak, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First, take into consideration that this is not a happy fic. It depicts canonical dark themes.
> 
> It's taken from both the movies and the book, so you are going to see book references. Nothing that isn't understandable. Eddie's characterization is closer to the book's, while Richie's is closer to the movie's. Not that Richie appears that much in the first chapter.
> 
> Thank everyone who read it and gave me their feedback, honestly. This has been hard to write and I couldn't have done it without you all.
> 
> Minbizia means cancer in Basque, but literally... it means something like "a life of pain", or something like that. Which I find... fitting.

Eddie doesn’t really remember much about his father. His mother doesn’t mention him often, and she insists, her voice cracked and her eyes wet, that Eddie is the only one she has left in the world.

Eddie knows that’s not the truth, deep down. His mother has sisters, all of them so similar that it gets a little weird when they’re all together, pinching his cheeks and telling him how cute he is. They all not so secretly hate each other, but Eddie keeps his mouth shut.

His mother could have friends, even in Derry. Even someone like him has friends, people who care about him, people in his heart that are worth dying for, given the circumstance. He shouldn’t be the only one in her life.

He still kind of feels responsible, though.

He remembers a hospital bed. Beeping machines that he wouldn’t understand until he was older, but still way too young to know what vitals are, what a glucometer is, what’s the normal rate a human heart has. Bed sheets that smell weird, people that smell weirder.

Sick. He knows what sickness is. His mom has warned him enough about it.

Frank Kaspbrak dies a long death, agonizingly, in pain. Cancer eats him from the inside, and that’s the first time Eddie wonders, almost unable to hear his thoughts because of how loud his mother is wailing, if he has something eating him from the inside, too.

His mother’s words end up solidifying that fear, making it real. He looks like his dad, he is frail like his dad was. She has to protect him, from the world, from sickness, from himself.

Something festers inside of him, and he still doesn’t know what it is. He just knows it will take him one day, after who knows how many years of making him rot.

* * *

Sonia Kaspbrak coddles her son after talking to his P.E. teacher. Well, talking would be an understatement. She yells at him, yells at Eddie’s teacher in front of his whole class. The rest of the kids look at him like he is some kind of alien, and Eddie does feel like he is, like he is going to grow a second head the more they look at him. The more his mother keeps yelling.

His teacher calmly insists that Eddie’s mother should calm down and listen to him. She has never liked to be told what to do, so if anything, she only gets louder.

Again, Eddie cannot hear himself think, desperately embracing himself with one arm, tugging a sleeve with it.

Everyone is looking at him. He hates it when everyone looks at him like that. He hates it when his mother yells like that, even if it’s not at him. He hates the look his teacher gives him, pitying him.

Maybe, because deep down, he already knows the truth about his mother, and himself. The feeling of touching the truth with his fingertips makes him dizzy, scared. Terrified.

_I can’t breathe._

His asthma is acting up again, apparently. He takes out his inhaler, desperately putting it in his mouth. The truth is far, far away again as he pushes the button. His throat opens up again, and he breathes.

Eddie keeps getting amazed by how medicine works. He has a headache, a pill will make it go away. He has one of his intermittent fevers, syrup will make him feel good again. His inhaler, his dear inhaler, that allows him to breathe when the world is just too heavy and he is too small. Too _fragile_.

Medicine is like magic, he thinks. And he really, really wants to believe in magic. The kind of magic that makes his mother’s voice go away, buzzing in the background.

He wonders if there is a pill for happiness. One that would clean him from any sickness, that would make his mind stop.

“Mrs. Kaspbrak, please. Just let him run.”

Eddie wants to run. Fast, far way. He doesn’t know how, or why. Not yet. He is small and has short legs. He has asthma and is very sick. He wants to drive a car, a train. He wants to go far and never look back.

“I do this because I love you.” his mother tells him afterwards. “You know that. If anything happened to you…”

Eddie nods, because he knows. His mom loves him, and he loves her back, dearly. She hands him a cough syrup that she always carries in her bag. To help him breathe better, she says.

Eddie takes it, marvels at the taste, and _knows_ he can be cured, after all.

* * *

His suspicions about himself get worse as he grows up, his body changing, becoming slightly taller, slowly.

He likes Greta Keene, or at least he thinks he does. Blond curls, a defiant stare. She is pretty, her presence commanding. She’s _mean_ , but excluding his friends, Eddie is not really that used to kids being kind to him.

She is cute, Eddie thinks. She won’t look in his general direction, not if it’s not to tease or mock him, but that’s alright. That’s just how popular girls are.

Reginald “Belch” Huggins _does_ notice him, though.

It’s not a good thing, Eddie knows that much. He has always admired the way he moves, the way he plays. He keeps telling himself that he is envious, that he wishes he could play like that, if his mother allowed him to play like that, that is. It’s only a half truth.

Belch catches him staring, and Eddie’s ears burn in embarrassment, the base of his neck cold in what he identifies as utter terror.

“What the fuck are you looking at, you _sissy queerboy_?”

His brain speaks in his mother’s voice. Talking about their neighbors, those goddamn _queers_. Eddie still doesn’t quite understand what being a queer is. Not fully. He only knows that mom says they’re sick. That their pastor thinks they are sick. Men who like other men in the way men like women.

It’s confusing to think about.

Everything he knows about sex and sexuality is thanks to Richie’s graphic descriptions of what he finds in his father’s porn stash, and what he has heard. Richie talks about it with enthusiasm, but Eddie knows it’s fake, rehearsed. The thought makes him sad, and angry, and he doesn’t know why, not yet. The information Richie gives them is easily disproved anyways, whenever he finds another source of dubious credibility, as Stan puts it often.

They talk about AIDS, about the leper that didn’t really have leprosy, apparently. Syphilis is a new word, for something that makes you rot from the inside. Like an apple. _Queers_ have it, because _queers_ are rotting from the inside, too. 

Like _him_. Because Eddie Kaspbrak is a-

Eddie gulps at the thought.

_No cure_ , he reminds himself. _It has no cure_. Like his father’s cancer.

Eddie does trust Richie’s information, but still looks to Bill for clarification. Bill, who reminds him a lot of his father, in many ways. Bill, whose blue eyes are beautiful, and Eddie catches himself staring, sometimes. Bill, who never laughs at his asthma, and never calls him a sissy queerboy.

And then there’s Richie himself. Richie’s eyes that don’t shine when he jokes about girls’ boobs. Richie’s hands, bigger than his, hesitating before touching him, but cupping his face, forcing him to look at him, when Eddie’s scared the most. Warm hands and warm eyes that tell everything the half truths on his lips don’t. Unspoken spaces between words that Eddie is still too young to fully understand.

Richie looks at him when Eddie smiles at Bill. Then, Eddie looks back, and that’s the only moment in which he finds Richie absolutely unreadable, his eyes dark and dull, his hands twitching as if he wanted to do something with them.

Eddie thinks about holding hands, sometimes, and his hands twitch, too. His heart does, too, and that’s infinitely worse. As if he were dying of a heart attack.

And then, Richie blurts out a joke, and Eddie is laughing as if nothing had happened. He laughs, and laughs, because he honestly believes that Richie is the funniest person in the world. Richie’s smile is sincere when Eddie looks at him, his eyes burning with laughter.

The world rotates around its axis again, as if this was the way it should be. But not quite.

Never quite.

Eddie doesn’t realise, but for once, the breathlessness he feels is actually pleasant.

He can’t really ask his mom about this. He doesn’t know why, but he knows that she would get angry. She would look at him with those small eyes of hers, drilling into his big, dark ones. He would be scared of her, he always is, even if she doesn’t hit him, even if she loves him.

She loves him, her Eddie-bear. And he loves his mom back.

The thought makes the inhaler in his pocket feel heavier.

* * *

And then there is no Derry. There is no Derry and he is alone. The further he is, the more time it passes, the least he remembers.

And then, there were none. Just him… and mommy.

College goes by without anything big happening. He goes to one close to their new home in New York. His new home… or maybe the home he never left. Because when he thinks about it, his brain gets foggy, and he just cannot find the strength to remember or to care about not remembering.

New York is big. Big would be an understatement, to be fair. It’s big enough for him to get lost, to feel the breeze as he drives his car, always knowing what to do, where to go. Running, even if it’s in a car, like he has always wanted.

Life is never that easy, though. Escaping is never that easy.

He gets a degree in finance, even though he never really liked the subject that much. He would rather be a mechanical engineer, or just ditch it all and become a train conductor.

He doesn’t leave home, not that he doesn’t try. He tries, and fails, tries and fails again, and _again_.

It’s not that he doesn’t have the money to leave. He has a decent job and he is great at it. It’s just hard to leave home, even if his mother is not wailing anymore, silent and calm because she knows she doesn’t have to pretend anymore.

Eddie has learned. And he has learned well. Where his place is, what he has to do.

_Home is where they chain you up_ , he thinks one night, alone, looking at himself in the bathroom mirror. He lets the water run a little, to the sink, to the sewers.

Eddie is twenty six, and he craves something, but he doesn’t know what. He just looks at the sink and smells something strange. Something rusty, like blood. He almost remembers, and then, nothing.

He is breathing hard, trying to calm down. He can’t. He just sits on the toilet, his inhaler forgotten for a moment, as big, fat tears roll down his cheeks, eyes big as a doe’s, dark and fixed and in panic. Lost, even at home, chained to himself and a life he tells himself is okay to love.

That’s how Sonia Kaspbrak finds him, looking even bigger than he remembered. She is wearing her old white nightgown, that is not white anymore, full of stains and so old its color and shine are fading.

She looks like a dinner table, Eddie thinks. With an old tablecloth, ready for its next meal. She smiles, her sweet and understanding smile, because she knows. She has always known the truth about Eddie, the core of his character.

“Eddie-bear. Are you feeling alright?”

A shiver runs down his spine. He wants to say he is. To lie, so she goes away. He just keeps crying, like a baby, and hates himself for it. He hates himself even more when she hugs him, and he lets her. That he feels as protected as he feels like suffocating.

“My poor, sweet boy. Always too sweet for your own good.” Sonia murmurs against his forehead, kissing it softly. Even with the years, she still manages to be taller. Eddie is still small. Still _delicate_.

“Mommy, I…”

“Don’t worry, honey. I have just what you need.”

Her steps are unusually silent in the middle of the night. That, or that Eddie cannot hear a thing that is not his own ragged breath, see a thing that is not his own reflection, sad and tired and _weak_. If it weren’t impossible, he swears that the sink is actually laughing, mocking him.

When Sonia comes back, she has a pill between her index finger and her thumb. Eddie recognizes it, it’s one of the pills his mother takes before sleeping. It’s small, but that only hides how truly powerful it is.

_Diazepam_. That’s what it is. Just what he needs.

The rational part of his head tells him to beware. That they’re strong meds, that shouldn’t be taken without a prescription. That he should tell his mother that he doesn’t want them, or need them. That he only needs a mother that loves him the right way. Not more or less than she does. Just differently.

Sonia looks at him expectantly, a dinner table with silverware on it. Her smile is big, her muscles tensing on her chubby face. She is happy, Eddie realises. She is happy when Eddie is at his worst. She is happy when she sees him scared, when she knows he cannot take it anymore.

She is _hungry_. And Eddie is just her next meal. Always has been.

_She eats me because she loves me_ , Eddie thinks, or reminds himself. He is not sure. _She eats me because she loves me._

The worst part of it is that he understands. He sees a glimpse of her in himself. He feels tainted, dirty. _Sick_.

She is his syphilis, she is his asthma. She is his _cancer_ . But that only means that _he_ is, too.

Eddie takes the pill. He immediately feels something. Calmness, stillness. Even if it’s not even remotely possible for the pills to be already working. They just do, because they're _magical_.

Because it’s all in his head, he knows that well. Around his heart. No matter what he _chooses_ to believe. He will die one day, as it was written he would _always_ be loyal to the poison of his choosing.

Sonia smiles, gently scolding him and reminding him to drink enough water when he takes his medication. Eddie isn’t even looking at her, his mind lost somewhere else, big eyes looking at nowhere in particular.

“Thank you, mommy.” he murmurs, because it’s what she’s expecting. What she deserves for all of her hard work.

She’s helping him. _Eating him_ . Because she loves him. _Because he is sick._

“You remind me so much of your father, Eddie-bear.” she says, her voice dreamy. He shivers unconsciously. “He was such a sweet man, and a little too delicate. Just like you.”

He doesn’t have the strength to feel anything at her words anymore.

Eddie sleeps a dreamless night. Everything is darkness even before he closes his eyes. A pair of yellowish eyes look at him from somewhere, far away. Taunting him, mocking him.

He doesn’t remember anything when he wakes up, his head hurting, his mind far, far away.

Somewhere, he knows, someone is laughing at him, like his life is some kind of twisted joke.

* * *

His mother’s death comes as no surprise to anyone, much less himself. Bad habits, an incredibly unhealthy life and body. She falls to the ground and the whole world seems to tremble. Not because of how big Sonia Kaspbrak was. Only because how much her absence seems to make his whole life crumble.

Eddie is thirty two, and he has been unable to leave home yet. His coworkers mock him because of it, he doesn’t have to be the smartest guy around to know. It's not that he is not used to the mockery, anyways.

He cries shamelessly in his office, like a child, shaking visibly without really knowing why. A part of him tells him that he should be glad, that he should be relieved. Eddie drowns it with guilt and the weight of comfort, of what he knows, of what he deserves.

He understands Sonia, more than ever. He is alone, completely alone. Lonely. He despises every second of it. The thought makes his blood run cold, and for a moment, he can feel his mother’s big hands caressing his shoulders, cold and rigid, moving towards his neck, grabbing it and applying just the right amount of pressure.

Eddie is choking, but he is not dying. This lack of air can only mean that he is still alive. He takes his inhaler out of his pocket, almost religiously. He puts it in his mouth, and then he presses the button.

Like a trigger.

There is a whole lot of her inside of him. He wishes he could kill it, the same way his meds make everything feel better. Less scary.

He wishes he could kill whatever it’s eating him from the inside, making him rot. Eating, eating, and eating.

Maybe, his mother always knew.

_Such a good boy._

“I don’t want to be alone.” he says to nobody in particular. He is sweating, his eyes not moving. “I want to go home. I don’t want to be alone.”

_I knew you would understand, better than anyone, Eddie-bear._

Sonia had always known the truth about him.

Eddie feels like crying again.

* * *

He meets Myra at work, and it’s not love at first sight, but it is some kind of _understanding_ at first sight. The kind of feeling you get when you meet someone who is, in some way, very similar to you.

Her chubby face makes her eyes seem even smaller when she smiles at him. Caring, devoted. She is sweet, in a way that looks familiar to Eddie. She doesn’t mind that she is sick when he tells her. She actually reminds him to take his meds when Eddie is way too busy or stressed to remember.

She is innocent, way too innocent, and Eddie feels drawn to her like a moth to a flame. She has even less experience with men than Eddie has with women, and for some reason that brings him comfort. Someone like him, finally.

Exactly like him.

Marrying her is a conscious choice. Deliberate, even. He puts two photos on the table, side by side, his hands clasped together, deep in thought.

The two photos look back at him, two women two tensely smile at the camera. Chubby faces, small eyes. Similar features, they could pass as sisters, if one photo wasn’t clearly way too old, and the other wasn’t recent.

Myra looks exactly like his mother, Eddie realises. As if his subconscious was guiding him towards her, back to her, always back to her.

He is sure that Sonia is having a big laugh at his expense, wherever she is.

“This is not funny.” he murmurs, to nobody in particular. Nobody who can hear, anyways. “This is not funny at all.”

It’s kind of fucked up. Twisted. The ultimate form of his weird Oedipus complex. A symbolic incest of a man, a _child_ , that cannot let his mommy go.

He feels sickened by it, and thinks about not marrying Myra. She would understand, right? He would be gentle with her. He could never tell her the truth, not when it’s painful for himself to even accept. Not when it’s not the whole truth.

Eddie could try to be nice, to be brave, to be gentle. She would listen to him with those innocent eyes of hers. It would break her heart, and Eddie would drown in guilt. But it’s not guilt what paralyzes him.

He ends up marrying her anyways.

Their wedding night is almost uneventful. He looks at her with genuine care, but without desire or affection. They are both thirty five, and they have never been with anyone else, not like this. He is half hard when she rides him, and he feels like crying the whole time. His orgasm is almost mechanical, almost empty. Eddie is fairly sure that Myra doesn’t even come herself. She kisses him on the cheek, and he smiles like a child being comforted after a nightmare.

_Good boy._

The thought gives him chills.

His mother would have loved Myra. He has no doubts about it. With time, Eddie tells himself it’s okay to love her, too. Convinces himself, even. His heart, tired and breathless, tries to remind him otherwise. Eddie has always wished he could forget.

_Queer. Sick. Rotten._

Eddie chooses not to listen.

His mother will always call. And him, like the good, subservient boy he is, will always answer.

* * *

Eddie is forty when he gets a call from Derry.

A call, a single call, is enough to make him remember. Just a little, just enough. Bill’s powerful stare, that made his heart flutter in ways he didn’t understand. Beverly’s smile after tearing up a little, because she understood, because she always understood Eddie better than anyone. Ben’s flushed face, chubby and nice and sweet, his lonely eyes wandering, looking at all of them as with an expression that could only be grateful. Mike’s calm smile, sometimes deep in thought, lightening up when any of them spoke, listening patiently. Stanley’s frown and easy smile, his clever eyes that knew way too much, way too soon.

And then, Richie. Richie’s big hands, his funny jokes. The way he reached out and touched him, but not in certain situations, when it would reveal _too much_. His unreadable expression, Eddie’s own anger, because he wanted to know more, to see more, to see him happy, to watch him express himself more.

_He wanted-_

Eddie sighs. Breathe in, breathe out. Easy. Easier said than done. His inhaler feels heavy in his pocket, and he thinks about triggers, and bloody bathrooms.

Eddie crashes his car.

He knows exactly what he wanted. He still doesn’t know if he is brave enough to even accept it.

_Sissy queerboy._

He gets home, and almost ignores Myra’s questions, answering like an automat. The feeling is familiar. The thought makes him want to puke. He tries to ignore it as he gets his bags ready. Bottles and boxes of medicine and kits fly through the room. Those will help. They always do. If he believes they do, deep in his heart.

_Queer_.

She is yelling, genuinely scared. Eddie is fragile, Eddie is delicate. Eddie is behaving unlike himself. Or maybe, more like himself that he has been in years.

“Eddie, you can’t do this. You’re very sick. You have to… you have to let me take care of you.”

_Sick. Delicate._

Eddie coughs anxiously. He is sick alright. So, so very sick, in ways that Myra could never understand. Rotten to the core, full of wants and desires. He wants to be free, to run, to scream until his lungs give up. Instead, he is chained to her, and he is chaining her back. Festering on each other like-

_Like cancer. Exactly like cancer_.

Myra is crying, but he is unable to feel much about it. A superficial sadness that makes him feel guilty. He kisses her cheek, like he used to do with his mother. Myra wails, because she doesn’t understand. Eddie isn’t sure he understands either himself.

He closes the front door, and starts walking. Quickly, and then even quicker. Almost running. His asthma doesn’t act up, this time.

_Let him run._

Running back home, to the belly of the beast. Where only darkness awaits. Darkness, and the truth.

Eddie wishes he could forget.


	2. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe I should tell you all that this fic was written while listening to Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons (and being emotional about it). And while I had a huge cold (I still do). I hope that rings a bell
> 
> Also there is character death in this chapter. It's a happy one, but please stop reading if that's too much for you

The hospital room is unusually quiet, given the circumstances.

  


Some machines beep, and Eddie knows that his pulse is even, but weak. It won’t be long. He knows it won’t be. He has gotten his daily check-up, and even if they won’t tell him, he is aware enough of his own situation. And of everyone’s expression, of course. Especially Richie’s.

  


Richie has always had his cards close to his chest, metaphorically speaking. That’s how he has always played, that’s how he expresses his emotions. So they cannot hurt him, or anyone else. Today, though, Richie looks absolutely wrecked.

  


Eddie is seventy, and all things considered, he has lived a good life. Stabbed a bully and a murderer. Murdered a clown from space that eats children and feeds on their fears. Divorced a woman that didn’t make him happy, setting both of them free once and for all. Married the love of his life, who looks at him in denial, because he knows, they both have known for months, but Richie has never been too good at accepting the inevitable.

  


_ I got sick, after all, didn’t I… _

  


He still hears his mother’s voice, sometimes. Has been doing it less and less since he stabbed that Pennywise motherfucker in the name of love and his own self worth. Old habits die hard, though. And his mother has never been too good at dying.

  


_ You’re sick. Just like your father. Just like those queers. Who is even going to love you if I- _

  


Eddie closes his eyes. Inhales, then exhales. His heart beats quicker, but he doesn’t allow himself to lose his temper because of ghosts that refuse to die for good.

  


_ Shut up, mom. _

  


And she does. He cannot even hear her wailing this time. He can hear his own thoughts. Everything is fine. Everything is going to be okay.

  


“Eddie. Eddie, please.”

  


Richie is holding his hand, his pulse unsteady. God, Eddie loves him. How could he have not realised until he was forty and almost dead? Did a killer clown from space have to show them the truth and happiness that they had both been denying themselves for so long.

  


He can hear Beverly whimpering, and he opens his eyes. Ben is cradling her as they sit on a tiny sofa, both of them old and happy and in love. Bill has tears on his beautiful, wrinkled blue eyes. Mike’s warm, dark eyes are flooded, his cheeks wet.

  


“Rich.” Eddie murmurs, slowly putting Richie’s hand on his lips, kissing it softly. Patty looks at them both from a corner, eerily quiet, not daring to say anything, because this looks all too familiar.

  


Richie lets out a desperate cry. His glasses are all foggy, and his lips are trembling. Eddie kisses his hand again. And then, Richie tries to smile, for him. That’s more than enough.

  


Stan died of a heart attack a couple of months ago. It was sudden, yet not too unexpected, given how much he used to joke about it. Richie mourned him, his best friend, almost as much as Patty mourned her husband. They had had a beautiful daughter, smart and strong Isabel, fulfilling their dream of being parents exactly nine months after defeating Pennywise.

  


Stanley lived a happy life, too, before finally passing. And now, Eddie guesses it’s his turn to go, too.

  


To run, and run, and reach somewhere new. To lose his breath, once and for all. And wait for them all, like Stan is. To wait, peacefully. Death has all of the time in the world, and Eddie still feels like running, even if he kind of does, too.

  


It’s ironic, he thinks. To die of cancer, like his father did. Like his mother warned him about when she didn’t allow him to be around anything and everything. He is not dying alone. He is not in pain. It isn’t being too long, or agonizing. It just is.

  


_ This is not bad. This is not bad at all. _

  


“Rich.” he insists, his voice a little shaky. His big, dark eyes are getting duller, life escaping him slowly.

  


“What?” Richie answers, dark eyes wide and shiny, and the wrinkles around his eyes almost disappear for a moment. As if they were young again.

  


Eddie hopes he looks like that, too. That Richie remembers him like that. As children playing around the sewers. Innocent, and free.

  


“You know I… you know I love you.”

  


Richie gulps. Tears fall down his cheeks, so openly that Eddie feels proud of him. Proud of his progress. Richie has always been such a crybaby, deep down. Behind all of his jokes, all of his smiles that didn’t fully reach his eyes.

  


“I… I know, Eds. And… you know I love you too.”

  


He freaking  _ loves  _ that nickname. His true name, his secret identity. Eddie reaches out, caressing his cheek, softly. Even after all this time, Richie’s skin feels warm, soft. More beautiful than ever. Handsome, radiant. 

  


_ This is a good way to go. _

  


_ Dying is not bad. _ He wants to tell them, but his voice doesn’t work anymore. Richie kisses his cheek, and he melts at the gesture. He smells good. He smells like home.

  


Eddie feels breathless. He feels  _ free _ . Life leaves him, everything getting clearer, and clearer. Sickness filling and emptying him at the same time. And love, love everywhere in the room. In every corner. Because love can cure everything, because love lasts forever. If you believe it does.

  


Eddie closes his eyes, smiling, lost in thought. He wants to say more, but he doesn’t really know what. And while he is still thinking about it, he dies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Book references, book references everywhere...
> 
> HMU at korepers on twitter, or at lehoiurdin on tumblr! Even if it's just to tell me "HOW DARE YOU"

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!!
> 
> If you wanna, idk chat, yell at me, or whatever, I'm korepers on twitter and lehoiurdin on tumblr.


End file.
